Leela is down to one nap, and gets really tired after lunch (about 1). But instead of going down without a fight, she resists her nap until about 4 or later. And by the time I have just given up and taken her to the playground, she passes out in the car and would happily sleep till 7 without intervention, which would then push her bedtime to 10 or later, which is pretty much my idea of hell.

Any nap gurus have ideas as to how to get her to go down by 2 or 4? Maybe move lunch? This is just way frustrating. Because she needs her nap and is wandering around crying from tiredness but refusing to lie down without biting me or pulling my hair, which is just not happening.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

I have just moved Westiebaby out of her bassinet and into her cot, and for naps, it's gone incredibly well, she just goes to sleep, sleeps for 1.5-2 hours and doesn't move a muscle. But overnight, she has been waking more regularly, and wriggling her way out from under the blankets, rolling over and crawling around [despite being swaddled, clever baby!]Any tips? She's 6 months old. I'm wondering whether trying one of those sleeping bag things might at least mean that it matters less that she's out from under the blankets so at least she'll be warm [it's the middle of Winter here].

How cold is it? I remember you saying that it wasn't supercold - so maybe she doesn't need anything? I have had to come to peace with the fact that L likes nothing on her in anyway. When we lost power and it dipped into the low 50s she snuggled up to me but anything in the low 60s and up, she sleeps alone in just a diap and t-shirt. She hated the sleep bags - anything on her body restricting motion is a no-go, but other people have had more success with them!

And re the nap reset, I ended up just coming home extra early today (at 11, so she had a full lunch by noon) and then I just encouraged her to nap, and she was out by 1. I think the problem was that I was waiting too long to bring her home, feed her etc. She is up, rested and superhappy (giving me brohugs!) But only tomorrow will tell!

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

just did a quick conversion and I think it was ~53F in our house this morning.She's always been fine with being swaddled, so I don't think she dislikes having something on her, it's just that when she wakes up she's got all this new room to move around in, whereas in her bassinet she couldn't roll over and would often re-settle herself back to sleep. I'm sure with time she'll get over the excitement of the cot!

Pleased to see you got Leela to take her nap - the idea of one nap a day sounds scary enough, can't imagine what it's like when they don't even take that!!

I am fearful that Malka is giving up her nap, or at least giving it up when she's with one of us. Apparently she naps just fine for more unusual caregivers (doesn't nap that well for the nanny anymore, but did in the beginning), but with us she will just avoid it all afternoon long. Today we drove out to Pennsylvania to see my husband's grandmother and to begin our vacation and she was in the car, aka the nap machine, for four hours, and managed to stay awake until the last fifteen minutes. By then it was 5pm. And she was kind of punchy during our visit, but she was mostly normal and awake, and then she went to bed at her normal time.

So I hope this isn't going to be the way it is from now on and I REALLY hope it doesn't mean she won't nap for the whole vacation week so we'll have no afternoon grown-up time which I was kind of counting on.

It started before the pink eye. We've tried earlier, no luck. We always do the "be very boring" method; there's really no other method that's ever worked with her (except Moby-ing when she was little and the car seat up till recently). When the method works, it almost always involves just falling asleep next to her and hoping she'll fall asleep soon after. Although when I tried that on Thursday (the pink eye disaster day), I fell asleep while she was still, then she climbed back over me, and proceeded to completely dismantle her room. When I woke up from the noise, she presented hardware from the baby gate we recently took down and said "Mommy! I broke it! It's broken!" So, um, yeah. My little sleepless acrobat engineer.

ETA: Other people lay her down in her bed at nap time and report that she just rolls over and goes to sleep. I have no idea what that's about. She's done that for us like three times in her life.

Hah! I feel your pain! I pretended to be sleeping and dozed off, and L had pulled everything out of the drawers and put them into the laundry hamper. That was fun. And if she didn't desperately need a nap, I'd let it go, but without a nap she bites me and cries and is so overtired.

Today was so much better with a 3 hour nap.

_________________My oven is bigger on the inside, and it produces lots of wibbly wobbly, cake wakey... stuff. - The PoopieB.

Yeah, the fact that she will basically have a good day even without the nap is why I'm wondering if she's weaning off it. I just really, really hope not. She's also been on and off teething her 2-year-molars for like a month, so I am blaming that, too.

Ariann, we just got back from a driving heavy vacation and it completely screwed the naps. I thought she would sleep in in the car, but no, not really.

On the flip side, once we got to our destination, she started signing bedtime whenever she wanted a nap which was glorious and unexpected. I think it was due to all the exercise and stimulation she was getting on the trip.

I think every kid is different so probably nothing I say here will be helpful, but what works for us is tons of physical activity early in the day up until lunch. Sometimes I can't feed her lunch fast enough...she crashes and has to nap right away before eating.

Oh, btw, I can't pretend to be asleep/boring. It doesn't work for us. She climbs on top of me and rides me like a horse. Fun times.

Finally, after weeks and weeks of tons of night wakings (had our good 2 week spell earlier this year)....a night where F slept from 11:30ish (with just a quick wake then) through till 6:30.

Then....last night. Two wakes, then a third (at 2:37) then some rolling/sighing/minor fussing and refusal to sleep until after 6 a.m. Seriously, what the fork is wrong with child? Whew. Thank god for the healing vibes of the outdoor swimming pool.

Malka took a forty five minute car nap today at 10:30 in the morning after only sleeping 9 hours last night. That was apparently plenty to keep her going till 8:30pm! She went from wide awake and jumping on the bed to zonked out in about twenty minutes. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

So our schedule for the longest time is rise around 9am, nap 11-1, nap 4-6, bed 9:30ish. Recently getting him down for his 4 pm nap is MURDER and he basically lays in bed not sleeping until we finally get him up and then he is of course grumpy. We had our pedi appt yesterday and she apparently said that he sounded like he might do better with one LONG nap instead of two (I didn't attend so this is the husband's interpretation of what she said). I would love this because our mornings would then be freed up a bit to go out and about but I was pretty sure most kids didn't move to one nap until a lot later? When did your child move to one nap...and was it a good thing?

Beetroot never napped and Raygold only ever had one nap (he would randomly lie down for 30 minutes and the get back up). But, I've heard from the land of two-nap-children, they do switch to one nap and do so by resisting one of the naps -- but like Ariann said, they're ready when they're ready, so you have to do what works best for you. (Although it sounds like it'd be better for everyone if you just had one nap.)

Speaking of naps, Vax sleeps a lot. A LOT. Neither of my other two kids really slept (Vax sleeps better at night now than Raygold did until he was at least 18 months old) and they were both high needs and really colicky, so this is weird. And no, this isn't some passive-aggressive way of bragging about having a baby that sleeps so well because it makes me a little paranoid, even though I know he's fine (eating well, pooping, TONS of wet diapers). I am always checking to see if he is still pink and breathing. I'm grateful I can get so much done, but it's so completely different from my other two that it doesn't feel 'right,' know what I mean?

Haha, I would think the same thing if I were in your place Crabby. Both of my kids were high need babies too and I am always bewildered when I'm around the super calm, sleeping variety. It's apparently a thing though.

Crabby - my baby is the calm, sleeping varietal too. It is a thing. A wonderful thing ;) I am afraid when we get a second baby that it might not be the sleeping kind and then what!?

That's what happened to my parents! I guess I was a *really* easy baby (my mom claims I never even cried) so when my sister arrived and wouldn't let them put her down for at least 3 months, they were really frustrated (and any notions of maybe having a third went out the window).

My advice if you ever get a high needs or colicky baby is to buy a baby carrier! B&R would go right to sleep in it. It was the only way I could get things done. I still use it when Vax is being fussy.

Crabby - my baby is the calm, sleeping varietal too. It is a thing. A wonderful thing ;) I am afraid when we get a second baby that it might not be the sleeping kind and then what!?

that's pretty much what happened to me...Dahlia has always enjoyed sleeping about 11 hours a night plus 2 hours during the day but Sierra is always up and raring to go after only 9 hours of sleep at night. She has also always been a one-nap-a-day baby and while it's usually at least a 2.5 or 3 hour nap, it comes after she's already been awake for like 7 hours. She's got crazy stamina I guess. It's honestly been brutal for me; she wants to get up like 6 hours before I leave for work so by the time I do go to work I feel like I've worked a whole day already.

Well, we decided to finally try to get Ada to fall asleep without us laying down with her. Last night she was ok with Andy just sitting on the bed. But she had no nap and was super sleepy. Nap today she was fine with me sitting on the bed, again because she was super tired. The problem is that this is probably going to take weeks until we can actually leave the room and Andy will be starting a new job in a week so naps are going to be a mess without him here to be with Alice. I wish we started this whole thing a few weeks ago. Ugh.